We Are Gathered
by Simon920
Summary: Dick and Bruce react to Alfred's passing. Now, while this is technically, I suppose, a deathfic, the old dear dies off screen, it was very quick and I promise he didn't suffer at all. Honest.


Feedback: Hell, yes.

**We Are Gathered…**

"We gather here today to celebrate the life of our dear friend, Alfred Pennyworth…"

It had been sudden and unexpected; a heart attack. Wondering what was keeping dinner, Bruce had gone into the kitchen, finding Alfred on the floor; already dead by the time Bruce checked his pulse. He'd done what he could, tried mouth to mouth, used the defibulator and called 911, but knew it was pointless almost as soon as he'd walked into the room.

That was four days ago and the word had gone out quickly to friends in both Brixton and the larger community Bruce Wayne and Batman moved in. It was Dick who made the initial calls since Bruce had taken refuge in the cave, saying he had work to do, refusing to make any decisions. Dick hadn't wasted time arguing or complaining, he simply did what needed to be done, quietly, efficiently and without fuss or protest. If Bruce noticed or wondered how the arrangements were coming along he never asked, seemingly assuming it would happen one way or another without his interference. Realizing he was coping the best he could, Dick let him grieve in his own way, dealing with his own loss in action. The service was all arranged, the church was full of people and flowers; the donations in Alfred's name to the Gotham Museum of Art were substantial. Everything was handled professionally and was absolutely correct and dignified as Alfred would want and expect.

That was for public consumption. Privately, later at the Manor with just close friends and family around things were more the way even Alfred would have secretly wanted. There had been good food and some of the best wines were brought out of the cellar, the ones that were saved for special occasions. The music was classical but not depressing and after a while, as these tend to, it turned into a pretty good party, lasting for hours.

Finally even the old friends had gone, leaving Bruce pretty much alone. Clark and Diana had offered to stay and even Arthur had suggested that Bruce might want to share a late beer or glass of something, but he'd politely thanked them and declined. Maybe next week he'd feel more like it, but not right now, thanks. The caterers had cleaned before they'd left and there wasn't much to show that eighty people, including some of the most powerful superheroes on the planet had been there just a little while ago—wearing civilian clothes to avoid explanations.

Most of the lights were off, the old house was quiet when Bruce went down to make himself a sandwich—he'd been too busy being the host earlier to eat—and saw a small sliver of light coming under Alfred's door. Going in, he saw Dick sitting on the edge of Alfred's perfectly made bed, studying something in his hand. The young man didn't bother to look up, though he inclined his head slightly, enough to acknowledge Bruce's presence. Bruce saw that he looked exhausted and wondered if the boy had slept the last few nights. Probably not enough.

"Would it be all right if I kept this?" It was Alfred's gold pocket watch; the one Elias Pennyworth had given his grandson before he left to start his new job in America. They both seen Alfred look at it a thousand times and it was as much a part of him as his dignity. "If he had someone he wanted it to go to, some family member or if he left it to someone like Leslie it's okay. I was just thinking, you know…" His voice trailed off.

When Dick's own father had died and after Dick had finally been allowed to go live with Bruce, he had begged that he be allowed to have a special watch, one that had been in the Grayson family, handed down from father to son for generations. It was all he wanted. Please. He didn't care about anything else, just the watch; it was really important and his father had promised. Please. Please.

Bruce had done everything he could think of to get the thing for the boy, but by the time he knew what Dick wanted, the estate, such as it was, had been disbursed. Everything had either simply been given away or sold, the money used to pay off debts and what little was left over put in trust for Dick. Bruce had spoken to Pop Haley, talked to the members of the troupe but no one knew where the thing had disappeared. Stolen? Lost? Who knew? It was gone. Bruce thought about trying to somehow have a duplicate made, but no one knew what the thing had looked like exactly or what inscriptions were on the back. He even considered having Clark go back in time to either locate it or take some pictures but finally let the matter drop. Dick had accepted it but he'd never forgotten.

"I'm sure he'd want you to have it."

"No, he'd probably think it should go to you, but is it okay?"

"If he'd wanted me to have it, I'd have given it to you eventually anyway. Take it."

Dick nodded and stood up, slipping the watch and its heavy gold chain into the pocket of the old jeans he'd changed into after coming back from the church. Jeans at Alfred's wake? Alfred would have pretended to have been appalled but then sternly told Bruce the boy should be comfortable in his own home and that was the way they usually saw him, anyway—when he wasn't dressed in spandex and Kevlar. Then he would have smiled; it was Dick's informality which had lightened up the old place, the 'mausoleum', as Dick had sometimes taken to calling the Manor and when the house became lighter and happier, so had the other two residents. That was worth a watch.

He turned to Bruce, finally looking at him. "It wasn't your fault, you know. You did everything you could; no one blames you. I don't; no one does."

Bruce shook his head. "I should have known about his heart, I should have made him see a doctor and…"

"And what? You're not Clark, you don't have x-ray vision; you couldn't have known. He had a check up every year and he was with Leslie all the time. She didn't know and if she thought he was okay there was no reason for you to suspect anything was wrong."

He shook his head again, sadly, defiantly.

"So you're going to beat yourself up over this for the rest of your life? Bullshit to that. He wouldn't let you get away with it and neither am I." He put his hand on Bruce's arm. "C'mon."

He led Bruce down to the cave, flipping on all the lights for once—Bruce usually kept the place in a state of perpetual gloom with just whatever he was working on reasonably lit. With everything blazing it was a completely different place; less ominous and intimidating; it was actually quite beautiful when you could see all the colors and textures in the rock walls. "Y'know, he hated that you trained me to follow you. He kept saying he had enough to do with one Batman around the house and really didn't need another."

Bruce looked around the huge and now bright cave as if he hadn't really looked at it in a long time, and probably hadn't. He spoke quietly as he slowly wandered from area to area, glancing over at Dick as he walked. "I know he did. He tried to talk me out of it the whole time you lived here, from the first day I started training you, all through the years you were Robin. Then when you started thinking that maybe you'd made a mistake and having this kid tagging alone wasn't a great idea, he told me it was too late; we both knew you wouldn't stop working the streets and that all it would do was make sure you'd be on your own so I couldn't keep an eye on you." Alfred had, reluctantly, insisted they couldn't go backwards, knowing Dick would never accept having Robin taken away from him at that point and would just go out on his own. Better they should work together—at least that was they could offer one another some protection and back up. It seemed the lesser of two evils.

He was standing by the pommel horse, chalking up, toeing off his sneakers and moving easily on the apparatus with Bruce watching. No one could move like Dick, no one had his grace and ease. It was almost nonchalant, like the moves were an afterthought instead of the elite tricks they really were. Dick was so good he made them look effortless, like your grandmother could do them and Bruce was as impressed as always.

"You know, I used to think Alfred was nuts." Dick was doing a series of Thomas flairs; his legs whirling around like the blades on a helicopter as he talked. "I mean, he basically gave up his life for you and later me, too. I used to think he should just chuck it, or at least back off and just do his job, y'know? 'Just do the cooking and cleaning and that kind of stuff and not get so involved in our lives—focus more on himself." He finished the flairs and began some easy scissor and leg swings, back and forth. "But at some point I clued in that he was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing; taking care of us." He moved faster, winding up momentum for the dismount, landing it as flawlessly as he did everything in a gym, legs together and form perfect. "It _was_ his choice and then I started to see it like it was his mission or something, like being vigilantes is ours."

Bruce didn't say anything, watching Dick, listening.

"So it's like this; you can grieve and move on or you can screw up your life even more than you've already done." He picked up a small towel from the bench, wiping off his hands.

Bruce looked at him; this wasn't what he wanted to hear from anyone right now, let alone his eighteen year old ward. This week he'd found Alfred, his surrogate father, lying dead on the floor and now Dick was casually leaning against the horse, telling him to suck it up and get on with things?

"C'mon, Bruce, don't give me that look. I'm not saying that we'll ever forget him. That's never going to happen—how the hell could we? 'You think I don't want to start crying? Christ, of course I do. I loved—I love him as much as anyone I've ever known. 'You think I don't know what he's done for me, for both of us? Or what would have happened if he hadn't been here?" Dick's face and voice was quiet, reflective. "Every school play, every track meet, every birthday and nightmare he was there for me…and for you, too. You think I don't know that?" He pushed away from the apparatus and started towards the stairs, done with what he'd needed to show Bruce in the cave. "Without Alfred, hell…" He shook his head at the thought. Without Alfred the last ten years would have been unbearable and he'd known that since the day he'd first set foot in the manor. Now, without Alfred around…He'd try to make it work, but Bruce was probably still assuming that he'd be going to some college but he wasn't small or dependent any more. He was close to needing to be out on his own and they both knew that. "We're going to be okay, Bruce. He raised both of us, right? He made sure we could handle anything, including this. We'll be okay." He gave Bruce's arm a slight squeeze as he walked by, causing Bruce to flinch just enough to be noticeable and Dick saw the expression on his face. He knew Bruce; he'd brood a while, maybe a few days, maybe a month or two, but he'd come it of it. The trick would be to have him emerge as undamaged as possible. That would be the hard part.

Bruce could hire people to do most of what Alf had done. He could hire a cook and a cleaning service and a valet and butler but he couldn't bring back Alfred. Bruce didn't do 'alone' well; he never had. That was a big part of the reason Alfred had agreed to the whole ridiculous idea of allowing Robin fly with Batman when he was only nine years old. C'mon, for God's sake, who in their right mind would suggest that as a reasonable idea, let alone allow it?

Back upstairs Dick sat on the edge of his bed, not as neatly made as Alfred's standards demanded, but at least he'd tried. That stuff he'd said down in the cave to Bruce? He believed it, all of it. They'd each grieve in their own different ways, try to help each other through it with the support of their friends and they'd come out of it eventually.

He hadn't given in to tears since his parents had been killed and he wasn't going to cry now but…shit. What would be the point? It wouldn't make Alfred alive again, would it? What Alfred would want was for someone to make sure the two of them were okay, that they were taken care of and Bruce sure as hell wasn't up to the job right now so—well, okay, it looked like he was elected. He'd do it. Besides, Bruce wouldn't accept it from anyone other than Dick and that was just the way it was.

He'd been sort of looking forward to getting out on his own, letting Robin fly alone for a while and see how he managed, but—like he just said, hell. Alfred and Bruce had taken care of him for ten years and picked up the pieces for him when he was the one who needed it. Dick would tell Bruce that he was going to take a year off between high school and college so they could both get their feet back under them. It made sense and Bruce wouldn't fight it too hard. After some time had gone by and they were both out of the fog Dick even had an idea about what he wanted to do next, on his own. Maybe he'd even retire Robin, move on to his own identity, finally out from under Batman's cape.

A year wasn't that long to give.

4/8/06

6


End file.
